In the field of the beverage-producing industry it is known to use plastics-material containers, these plastics-material containers being produced from plastics-material pre-forms by a shaping procedure, and in particular a blow-moulding procedure. In this case it is customary to provide blow-moulding wheels on which a plurality of blow-moulding stations are arranged, the plastics-material pre-forms being expanded against an inner wall of the corresponding blow mould by being acted upon with compressed air inside these blow-moulding stations.
For many beverages it is necessary in this case for them to be filled under aseptic conditions. In this case it is known that a sterilization process for the aseptic filling begins with the sterilization of the already finished bottles in a clean room provided for this. All the processes taking place beforehand in the prior art, such as the production of the pre-forms, the transportation, the heating and the blow-moulding thereof to form bottles, take place in a non-sterile environment. In this case it is necessary for a relatively large area, namely that of the finished plastics-material bottle, to be sterilized.
It is therefore generally desirable to sterilize, not the plastics-material bottle itself, but rather the plastics-material pre-form, since the latter has a considerably smaller surface. Nevertheless, it is necessary for the containers to be conveyed under sterile conditions after the sterilization thereof, in particular in a continuous manner, at least until they are closed, in order to prevent in this way a further contamination of the containers.
EP 0 794 903 B1 describes a system and a method for the sterile packaging of beverages. In this case a beverage container is formed from a shaped pre-form by blow moulding, then the container is filled with a sterile drink and finally the filled container is filled with a sterilized closure cap. In this case different degrees of sterilization are controlled in various parts of the chamber, the degrees of sterilization being correlated with the degree which is necessary for the method step that is being carried out in the part of the chamber in question.
In this production method the entire production process of the bottle and also the filling and closure process are carried out in a continuous manner under sterile conditions. In this case a complete shaping unit of the containers is arranged in a clean room. This method ensures a high degree of sterilization and cleanness of the containers filled in this way. On the other hand, however, the outlay for the sterilization is relatively high since on the one hand very large rooms have to be kept sterile and on the other hand a plurality of machine parts are also present, namely in the region of the blow-moulding apparatus, which have to be kept sterile.
It may be desirable therefore to reduce the outlay for the sterilization or keeping sterile of a shaping unit or blow-moulding device for containers. Conversely, however, production conditions which are as sterile as possible should be provided for the containers.